*This post was written by fellow Frontliner Tania Loke, on her personal experience in the Zliners-PFA Floorball Tournament.
I'd gotten used to fireBRANDS/FGA-ers accusing me of betraying them in the big yet small world of floorball. And now, a certain Frontliner quipping (to someone else who then told me) that I had betrayed FFC was something new. In this world of alliances and allegiances, I had my fun. Lots of it, really.
Face #01: F-Jr's Asst. Team Manager
After what he claimed to be "some consideration", Coach Jason Chan decided to give me the job as Team Manager Kew Pei Li was unavailable. Sweet. Though I still haven't gotten any pay...
F-Jr (as I saw it) was raring to go, pumped up: Captain (yes, Captain) Julian "Energizer Battery" Tan being the most restless of the lot. Can't blame the three (Julian, Wayne Yong, Tristen James) after they'd suffered from floorball deficiency for a few months.
Now unfortunately that job of mine didn't come with a job description, so I busied myself shouting at them under-14s about how clumped up they were and urging them to take more shots while telling Tristen that being a substitute didn't mean a full-game bench.
The Kestrels (Dalat) beat us fair and square. Next up, them juniors had fun beating up Firebrands I² (with me relishing every goal we scored against that particular team). We all knew that the last game had to be won to stand a chance to fight in the semis, and F-Jr delivered a stunning win against Contact Hoppers (who, by the way, beat the Kestrels).
Very, very unfortunately, we hadn't really considered goal difference, and were relegated to the 5th/6th match. The four F-Jr players were obviously disappointed, myself too. Nevertheless, we did rake up a respectable 6th place.
Face #02: E&P's Team Manager and Captain
Elephants are slow and pineapples, well, they don't really move much. And so E&P were late, arriving 30 minutes later than expected. Which meant insufficient time for warm-ups and almost no time for a briefing.
And so 6 floorball noobs were pitted against the UniHawks. At every face-off I told the UniHawk I was facing to consider the stark inequality of the two sides: tall (some ex-) mahasiswa-mahasiswi against relatively short, inexperienced secondary school students.
A Pineapple was sent off for putting her roots in the crease. E&P had close to no hope, six players having not much knowledge about floorball. We lost rather tamely, and I didn't bother to remember the score, frankly.
With 8 minutes to spare till the next match, I hurriedly enlightened the Elephants and Pineapples as much as I could. I desperately wanted to win against Frontliners Inferno and would've been more than disappointed if we lost. After all, we had (wo)manpower on our side.
I'd thought about Sonia Frances Gopal going on the offensive against E&P before, but I didn't prepare much when it came to strategy. Tactics don't really work on new floorballers, really. And so she did, after all, revert from that defensive spot and run past Elephants and Pineapples.
Apparently common sense plays a huge role in floorball (for newbies, at least). Some Elephants clumped around and didn't spread out enough. Though some Pineapples were playing pretty well for newbies. After Sonia scored the first goal, I was dejected, honestly.
Fortunately E&P came back with yours truly scoring a goal. The result: a draw.
Hopes weren't high against Ednamodes. We simply played, had fun, and lost. Although I did manage to score through a penalty. Which was a small consolation.
E&P was placed against Violets next for 7th/8th position. We played to a draw (1-1, I reckon) and went to penalties.
So maybe I did smile a little too much while taking the penalties, miserably failing to score both. Violets won by a penalty.
E&P would've won the following titles: the most retarded team, the most retarded team name, the most retarded cheer, the most retarded smiles, the most retarded playing. Unfortunately, the organisers probably didn't see it fit to add in those retarded awards. Oh well. Maybe next time..
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